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ACWA Welcomes You
The ACWA Board of Directors, its officers and members would like to welcome you to the online home of the American Chuck Wagon Association, a 501.c.3 organization.
About Our Association
Get To Know Us
The American Chuck Wagon Association started out as a small group of Old West enthusiasts and has expanded to world wide association preserving the American past through competitions, demonstrations, charity and school events and other venues.
Our work is funded by sponsorships (see the power point presentation shown below-right); tax-free donations, honorariums and memorials
(We are a 501.c.3 organization);
cookbook, note card, t-shirt & cap sales in our General Store (go shopping), as well as membership dues.
For donations, honorariums and memorials, you may send a check to:
ACWA, 1723 East Tate Street, Brownfield, TX 79316 or call Nancy Sparks at (806)215-7851 with credit card information.
For Honorariums and Memorials, please include the name of the person remembered/honored, and address for a thank you card.
Youth & the ACWA
Our youth are our future and the ACWA supports activities directly involving them. We encourage producers to offer youth
competition at their cook offs whenever possible. Many of our cooking crews include young people at the cook offs.
The Association also periodically honors an outstanding young cook with the Rookie of the Year award.
In addition, the ACWA offers scholarships (read more) to selected individuals each
year. If interested, download an application here.
Scholarship recipients for the upcoming school year are Caleb Swanson from Canton, SD, and Chelsea Carter from
Prairie Hill, TX.
One of our recipients recently sent an update you may read here.
Another way to involve and educate our youth is with demonstrations. At one cook off, invitations were given to area schools to come on Friday.
There were busloads coming and going a good portion of the day. The students were wonderful and the three host wagons enjoyed sharing their camps
and telling a little about the history of the chuck wagon and the trail drives.
General Store
Want to take home some of that authentic, Old West taste and style? Now you can with ACWA Cookbooks, beautiful note cards and caps!
Chuck Wagon Catering
Many of our members offer catering services. Check out the link above to contact one of them about bringing some of the finest chuck wagon cooking to your next event.
ACWA News & Events
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August, 2017, President's Message
I apologize for this message being a little late, but I have been tied up with a little project called retiring!
I would like to talk about some of the changes that are taking place with ACWA. As I have said in previous messages, ACWA hired Sheryl Wailes, who with her husband Rex have the Lizzie II wagon. They are in the process of moving from Bennett, Colorado to the Bandera/Medina, Texas area. Earlier this year Nancy Sparks notified the Board of Directors that she wanted to step down from doing the quarterly ACWA Newsletter. So Sheryl who has done newsletters for a couple of other organizations is taking over the ACWA Newsletter starting with the September edition. To coincide with important ACWA activities the newsletter schedule will be changed to September, December, March and June.
Also, part of Sheryl's position it to be over all ACWA communications including the ACWA Championship Cook Off to ensure uniformity of messaging, information and reference of all ACWA activities in the newsletter, ACWA website and ACWA Facebook page. ACWA has paid out legal costs in the past 18 months caused by miscommunications so having one person over all communications should eliminate the possibility of additional legal issues. ACWA is more interested in funding educational events, youth cook offs and scholarships NOT to pay attorney fees.
In addition to the above, Sheryl will oversee all membership communications, work with Marilyn Johnson on revamping the ACWA website and work with Maribeth to pursue educational grants for ACWA to better achieve the association's mission: "to preserve the history of the Chuck Wagon Era by providing educational opportunities and events to diverse audiences of all ages while continuing to provide youth scholarships and support for wounded warriors". I think everyone will be surprised at Sheryl's ideas for the newsletter as well as ideas on generating renewed interest to potential members.
One of the main areas ACWA is focusing on is how to increase the youth educational events to generate interest and 'grow' a new generation of chuck wagon owners and cooks. So if anyone has ideas or suggestions please contact Sheryl or me.
Another area ACWA is looking at is doing more chuck wagon events/activities to help our past and current military personnel and their families. We have been in discussion with a couple of groups concerning this and you will be hearing more about these activities in the near future. Again if anyone has ideas or suggestions please contact Sheryl or me.
Once again, planning for the second ACWA Championship Cook Off has already started! It will be held April 5-7, 2018 at the Gillespie County Fair Grounds in Fredericksburg, Texas. The dates for 2019 have been reserved for April 11-13, 2019. This should give everyone plenty of time to make plans for these dates. Also I have been in communications with Randy May and Greg Liles with Cowboys for Heroes regarding the Fort Sam Houston event to ensure there is not another conflict with dates for 2018 and 2019 as was in 2017. Since ACWA is using a public facility for the ACWA Championship Cook Off reservations must be made well in advance. April 5-7, 2018 was the only weekend date available between January and July at the Gillespie County Fairgrounds. If you would like to volunteer at the second ACWA Championship Cook Off, please let us know as we can never have too many volunteers!
So far there are nine wagons from four states qualified for the second ACWA Championship Cook Off. Here are the remaining ACWA sanctioned cook offs where wagon teams can qualify for the ACWA Championship Cook in 2018:
A Painted View Cook Off - Westcliffe CO - August 19
Washington County Fair Chuck Wagon Cook Off - Brenham, TX - September 15-16
Staked Plains Roundup - Hobbs, NM - September 15-16 (new sanctioned event)
Chandler Chuck Wagon Cook Off - Chandler, AZ - November 10-11
If you have never attended a chuck wagon cook off, click on the Competitive Events tab above then click on 2017 and any month to see if there is a cook off close to you.
"PULLING TOGETHER AS A TEAM IS THE BEST WAY TO GET THINGS DONE." - ANONYMOUS
Well I had better wrap things up for this month. Hope to see y'all at one of the cook offs throughout the year.
Until next time, Happy Trails!
Ronnie Sexton
2017 ACWA President
A Little History
In 1996 at a chuck wagon competition in Amarillo, Texas, a small group of Old West enthusiasts and wagon masters talked about an
association. The mission would be to preserve the heritage of the chuck wagon and its use in the short, but significant, era of the cattle
drives. In 1997, in Bryson, Texas, by-laws and articles of operation were adopted and the American Chuck Wagon Association was off and
running. Today there are members in 31 states, Canada, Germany and France.
In 2016, the original mission statement was revised and Sanctioning was approved. The revised mission statement reads as follows:
The mission statement of the American Chuck Wagon Association is to preserve the history of the
Chuck Wagon Era by providing educational opportunities and events to diverse audiences of all ages
while continuing to provide youth scholarships and support for wounded warriors.
It is that time of year when ACWA asks their current members to nominate three new directors and nominate individual or teams for various organization awards.
Here are details and the ACWA Award Nominations form
Also, the ACWA Annual Meeting will be held at the Saints' Roost Museum in Clarendon, Texas, starting Friday, November 3, 2017 with a 'meet and greet' and the annual meeting the next day, Saturday, November 4, 2017.
More detailed information was sent to all current ACWA members through email or USPS - for those without email addresses. So be on the lookout!
You can find the 2017 ACWA Championship Cook Off results and 2018 qualified wagons here.
Click on the dots to see more detail.
Members participate in Cook off competitions, demonstrations, catering, charity events, school visits and many other activities to fulfill that original mission and even surpass the dreams of those organizers. Thank you for visiting our site and we hope you will visit one or more of our chuck wagon events.